General Motors' Chevrolet Volt has taken a serious beating over the past year or so after its battery fire issues were brought to light, and that beating showed as January Volt sales plummeted.

For the month of January 2012, GM sold a total of 603 Volts, which was significantly lower than December 2011's total of 1,529 Volts. GM sold a total of 7,700 Volts in 2011.

Chevrolet's plug-in hybrid electric Volt had a very up-and-down (but mostly down) 2011. In May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducted a side-impact test on a Volt in its Wisconsin testing facility. Three weeks later, the Volt caught fire while parked in the testing garage, leading to an investigation of the safety of lithium batteries. Lithium batteries can catch fire if the internal cells or the battery case are pierced by steel or another ferrous metal.

In November, the NHTSA conducted three more side-impact crash tests with three additional Volts. Two of them sparked or caught fire while the third remained normal. From there, GM did everything it could to make customers happy, from buying Volts back to offering loaner vehicles to scared Volt drivers.

The entire situation seems to have put the Volt in a bad light for some, possibly affecting the January 2012 sales numbers. In fact, former GM Vice Chairman for Special Advisor Design and Global Product Development Bob Lutz said earlier this week that the media ruined the Volt's reputation with negative coverage. More specifically, Lutz targeted "right-wing media."

"But the Oscar for totally irresponsible journalism has to go to The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News, with, as its key guest, Lou Dobbs," said Lutz. "Amid much jocular yukking, the Volt was depicted as a typical federal failure. In attempting to explain why Chevy has sold fewer than 8,000 Volts, Dobbs states, flatly, 'It doesn't work.' He elaborates, 'It doesn't go fast and go far on electricity. What happens is it catches fire.'"

Lutz, you have the hottest car in the country right now. And NOBODY from GM is talking about it. The Chevy Cruze (remember that car?) depending on what source I found, is the #1 selling car in America. It's beating the Camry! When's the last time GM did that!?

Has anyone actually come off well when pulling the "blame media" card? Instead of wasting time deflecting blame for the Volt's obvious lack of consumer appeal, why not devote national media time to plugging the Cruze!? It has the sales crown and not a single person from GM seems to care!

Does GM even have a PR department, or is Lutz really this stupid? I'm leaving politics and Obama out of this one guys. Strictly from a business standpoint, this is just mind boggling.

One source said it is, and another I found said it's #2. That's why I said "depending on source". Point is either way, it's a sales HIT! This is car people want. There's consumer demand. And it could sell even more if they actually PUSHED it even half as much as the Volt.

quote: Lutz, you have the hottest car in the country right now. And NOBODY from GM is talking about it. The Chevy Cruze (remember that car?) depending on what source I found, is the #1 selling car in America. It's beating the Camry! When's the last time GM did that!?

Now Reclaimer, while it's not outselling the Camry, you do have a point.

However, let's just take your point and move it outward. They could just design a Volt-esque PHEV vehicle inside the Cruze's body and sell it as the highest end luxury package. This way, you'd see better sales numbers, you wouldn't have the fugly that is the Volt and you'd be able to get away from the "BURNING UP THE ROAD BABY (oh and your family in the car)" stigma that the Volt has now. Honestly, if they let me be CEO for a few weeks even, I'd have GM doing some pretty good things.

The unfortunate thing is that they let totally investor centric people be CEOs or they let these guys who have this "marvel of technology," that they push even if it tosses their company into an early grave, be CEOs.... never someone who is balanced and... ya know, intelligent on both fronts (or as I like to call it, practical/pragmatic).

The Volt's issue is many fold, but two big ones are that it was a first generation technology that still had a few bugs (which I'm sure GM has easy fixes for at this point), it was way too expensive, it was ugly as all get out (my opinion, you can agree or disagree), and it wasn't marketed in a manner that really would have sold it to the general public.

quote: The unfortunate thing is that they let totally investor centric people be CEOs or they let these guys who have this "marvel of technology," that they push even if it tosses their company into an early grave, be CEOs.... never someone who is balanced and... ya know, intelligent on both fronts (or as I like to call it, practical/pragmatic).

Who is they? This man was essentlially given the job by the Whitehouse. The same folks who killed my car, which was selling very well but has a V8 for a motor.

I think the better parallel here is how Toyota still has a top seller after their PR nightmare with the accelerator debacle. It seems Americans are willing to let bygones be bygones and will buy what they like. The Volt is actually an achievement in engineering, a first of its kind, but that doesn't make it a real solution to most people. It seems to target the wrong segment for the price it commands.

Besides, if GM is being honest, most of their volt buyers aren't Fox news people, so media slander just doesn't work. Even then, MT gave it car of the year honors, so it hasn't been all bad press for GM.

"A politician stumbles over himself... Then they pick it out. They edit it. He runs the clip, and then he makes a funny face, and the whole audience has a Pavlovian response." -- Joe Scarborough on John Stewart over Jim Cramer